


Day Seven: Incendiary

by rizahawkaye



Series: Royai Week 2017 [7]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fire, Guilt, Hurt, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 20:58:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11169957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rizahawkaye/pseuds/rizahawkaye
Summary: "All the notes from my research...are held by my daughter... If you promise...to use your alchemy with the right intentions, she will let you have it all..."





	Day Seven: Incendiary

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the A N G S T.

There's a stillness that's marred by the snap of his fingers, by the harsh intake of her breath. She's writhing under his heat and he's creating invisible channels through which his flames can whip against her. He wants to close his eyes, but she doesn't deserve that. He deserves to watch her toes curl, to watch her shoulders arch as she rides the surges of pain.

"Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop," she's panting at him. "Burn it off, burn it _off_." He grabs his face in his hands and stares at the floor. His jaw's clenching, she's huffing out breaths too hard, too hard, he thinks.

He whispers that he's sorry but she can't hear him over her the grind of her teeth against his sheets. Her hands are twisting into the pillows above her head. Her hands are twisting as she's sending muffled screams out into the quiet that are breaking him. He's crumbling and he tells her he has to stop.

He's dizzy, his ears are ringing, the room is wet with seared flesh. Everything's fuzzy, there's sweat dripping over his brow. He's watching her back rise and fall with her breath as her cries subside. It's a surface burn, he tells himself. It's a surface burn, it's a surface burn, it's a surface burn.

Her blood trickles down from her wound and touches her breast and he's maddeningly close burning his eyes out of their sockets. He takes his transmutation gloves off his hands in a panicked fit. I can't, I can't, I can't. His pulse is pounding like a drum in his head and he has to brace himself against his bedroom wall to keep his knees from caving in. No more, no more.

Her hands shake as she pulls his bedding out of her mouth. He's watching her face, watching her eyelids flutter and wondering how he could have stopped her soft eyes from hardening. She was a child, the daughter of his master and he'd distorted her senses; he mangled her body. He presses his palms over his ears and tries to smother Berthold's words.

"Roy…look after my daughter, look after my daughter, lookaftermydaughter _lookaftermydaughterlookaftermydaug_ -"

She cuts him off with, "Mr. Mustang," and he can feel her voice scrape against her throat. He knows, he knows she's burning. He doesn't respond at first, he only pulls his hands back and digs his nails into the drywall until she coughs and he can see tears forming under her cheek. He leaps for her, kneels beside her, and pulls a lukewarm towel out of a bucket of water by his bedside that he runs over her singed skin. She hisses through gritted teeth, her back instinctively pulling away from his touch.

He's wiping the tears from her eyes, staining his towel with her blood, and he sees the bleak landscape of the civil war in her features. He sees the dark bodies lying stark against the white sands. He whispers to her that he's sorry, he's sorry, he's _so sorry_.

I'm a failure.

He's burying his face into the mattress. He's touching her, he has a hand on her back and a hand on her face. Barely 20, she's barely 20. He can feel her skin bubbling up underneath his fingertips. What have I done?

"What have I done?" He stutters through a wave of guilt. It takes his breath and steals it for the air around him; the air that's tinged with her flesh.

"I like it better this way," she rasps. "I like it better this way, Mr. Mustang."

Tears play on the corners of his vision and he doesn't look at her as she starts to run her fingers through his hair. Her hands are calloused, he realizes, but she's so gentle and he's saying he's sorry again but he's spitting the words out through sobs.

"I like it better this way," she assures him. "I like it better."

**Author's Note:**

> Royai Week has come to an end. :-(


End file.
